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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Lessons Learned: “That could have been us”

On
Sunday morning, October 9, 2011, many of the Green Isle firefighters were at
the station preparing for their annual pork chop dinner that was to be held
later in the day. During the set-up, the fire department was paged for a mutual
aid response to a neighboring city on a reported “house explosion.” Green Isle
responded with five firefighters in engine #631—a 1991 Ford Forstner pumper—and
headed toward the call. (This would be the last time this truck responded to a
fire.)

The
crew suited up and got into their air packs during the response. No one was
wearing a seat belt. When they came to the intersection of Co. Rd. 27 and 72,
they planned to turn left at the T intersection. The driver applied the air
brakes, but nothing happened as the pedal went to the floor. The driver managed
a downshift, but it was too little too late to stop the set of events that was
in motion. The truck swerved to the right—tires screeching as they left
scuffmarks on the pavement—the truck left the road, went into the ditch, and
rolled over.

The truck was totaled...note the booster tank.

The
State Patrol report indicates that the brakes failed and the truck rolled over
one time. A witness to the crash said the truck rolled two times. Either way,
as the truck rolled, the 1,000-gallon booster tore loose from the truck and
broke apart. Equipment and dirt went flying everywhere as the truck came to
rest on its wheels, pointed back in the direction it came from. The
pre-connected hoses in the cross lays had flown out and were wrapped around the
truck like a ribbon on package.

One
of the witnesses to the accident was a firefighter from another department who
was also responding the call. He notified the Sibley County dispatcher who
immediately started emergency responders to the crash site. As the scene began
to stabilize, responders were dealing with the emotions of handling a serious
emergency involving their friends and fellow firefighters. (We handle other
people’s emergencies with great proficiency, but we often do not handle our
emergencies as easily.) Neighboring departments came to assist, and after
tending to the injured they spent time walking the fields at the crash site and
picking up the equipment that had been thrown as the truck flipped.

Equipment was thrown from the truck.

Fire
Chief Scott Vos was on his way home from a hunting trip when he realized he had
a message on his phone. When Vos retrieved the voicemail it said, “Scott, we
rolled the pumper. Everyone is alive, but I am not sure how bad they’re hurt.”
The call was from one of the assistant Green Isle fire chiefs. Subsequent calls
were chaotic, and the poor cell coverage only added to the anxiety as the news
slowly got better. Though each of the firerfighters was hurt and transported to
the hospital, there were no serious injuries for any of them. All were discharged
and home later that afternoon. Chief Vos reflected, “I have no idea how they
lived through it.”

Fire
Chief Vos is determined to pass on the lessons learned from the Green Isle
crash.

So
what can we learn from this?

Seat Belts -
Seat
belt usage needs to be mandatory, it needs to be in your policy, and it needs
to be enforced—it’s the law. No exceptions.

Truck
Maintenance - In Minnesota, fire apparatus are exempt from theannual DOT inspection. However, if the
truck is involved in an accident, a DOT inspection will occur and the results
will be part of the accident investigation—and potential criminal
investigation. The truck and your department will be held to the DOT standards.
Good truck maintenance and detailed records are critical. In the eyes of the
court, if it was not documented, it never happened. An annual DOT inspection
and detailed maintenance records are good risk management.

Talk About
What Happened - The use of the regional Critical Incident Stress
Debriefing (CISD) team “helped everybody” as the “raw emotions” of caring for
other responders and friends was talked through and the incident was reviewed.
Chief Vos said a separate meeting with only the firefighters involved was
critical to getting the department functioning again and restoring
relationships.

Risk vs.
Benefit - The
responders are of no use if they don’t get to the scene. The reported house
explosion turned out to be a stove fire.

Talk
about what happened in Green Isle with your department. Hold to the standards on
safety, and don’t let a deviation from that standard become the new normal. We
thank Chief Vos and the Green Isle Fire Department for sharing their story and
their “lessons learned.”

Many
of the state’s fire chiefs have said under their breath: “That could have been
us.”

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Rob Boe

About Rob Boe

Rob Boe is the Public Safety Project Coordinator with the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust (LMCIT). Previously Boe worked for nearly 40 years in public safety—as a peace officer with the Prior Lake Police Department, as chief deputy with the Scott County Sheriff’s Office, and as a firefighter with both the Burnsville Department of Public Safety and the Bloomington rescue squad. His work with LMCIT’s loss control program focuses on researching and understanding the causes of public safety losses, developing new programs to reduce losses, and launching new efforts to keep public safety workers safe on the job.

LMCIT is a member-driven organization that exists solely to meet the risk management and insurance needs of Minnesota cities. LMCIT's property/casualty program has more than 1,100 members, and the workers' compensation program has more than 900 members.